Continuous device downscaling, growing integration densities of nanoscale electronics, and development of alternative information processing paradigms are just a few of the technologies driving a desire to increase data storage capacity. One solution to increase data storage capacity are heat-assisted magnetic recording systems which use near-field optical transducers to heat magnetic recording layers during writing operations. As a result, heat assisted magnetic recording systems use not only magnetic but also thermal energy. Such heat assisted magnetic recording systems use recording media with magnetic recording layers having substantially higher anisotropy in order to achieve ultra-high recording densities. As a result, thermal management of media thin films is an important aspect of heat-assisted magnetic recording.